Quotes by Inventors

I am a misanthrope, but exceedingly benevolent; I am very cranky, and am a super-idealist. ... I can digest philosophy better than food.
Alfred Nobel
Property has its duties as well as its rights.
Thomas Drummond
Every creature is a living instruction that runs the algorithm of nature.
Joey Lawsin
The same wind that extinguishes a light can set a brazier on fire.
Pierre de Beaumarchais
As a cure for worrying work is better than whiskey.
Thomas A. Edison
Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.
Lin Yutang
I never did anything worth doing by accident nor did any of my inventions come by accident they came by work.
Thomas Alva Edison
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison
I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
Thomas A. Edison
Imposing limitations on yourself is cowardly because it protects you from having to try and perhaps failing.
Vladimir Zworykin
All women's dresses are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.
Lin Yutang
Nature says to a woman: 'Be beautiful if you can wise if you want to but be respected that is essential.'
Pierre Beaumarchais
Either war is obsolete or men are.
Buckminster Fuller
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. They make the impossible happen.
Dr. Robert Jarvik
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
Henry Ford
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
Edward de Bono
We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.
Henry Ford
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
Charles F. Kettering
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar instead of how little he can give for a dollar is bound to succeed.
Henry Ford
Before everything else getting ready is the secret of success.
Henry Ford
All my life I have risen regularly at four o'clock and have gone into the woods and talked to God. There He gives me my orders for the day.
George Washington Carver
There is literally nothing that I ever asked to do that I asked the blessed Creator to help me to do that I have not been able to accomplish.
George Washington Carver
I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge I believe everything will work out for the best in the end.
Henry Ford
Society can only exist on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
Lin Yutang
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
Lin Yutang
It is what you are inside that matters. You yourself are your only real capital.
Vladimir Zworykin
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can.
Lin Yutang
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can do.
Lin Yutang
You can enjoy encouragement coming from outside but you cannot need for it to come from outside.
Vladimir Zworykin
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge experience and ability.
Henry Ford
Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting.
Buckminster Fuller
The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures.
Sir Humphrey Davy
Dare to be naive.
R. Buckminster Fuller
No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.
Charles F. Kettering
The faster you go the more chance there is of stubbing your toe but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
Charles F. Kettering
When I was young I said to God "God tell me the mystery of the universe." But God answered "That knowledge is reserved for me alone." So I said "God tell me the mystery of the peanut." Then God said "Well George that's more nearly your size." And he told me.
George Washington Carver
The question "Who ought to be boss" is like asking "Who ought to be tenor in the quartet?" Obviously the man who can sing tenor.
Henry Ford
When one door closes another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
Edward de Bono
A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
Charles F. Kettering
Give me a lever long enough And a prop strong enough I can single-handed move the world.
Archimedes
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.
George Washington Carver
This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
Lin Yutang
The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.
Charles Franklin Kettering
Hope is like a road in the country there was never a road but when many people walk on it the road comes into existence.
Lin Yutang
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
Henry Ford
Think you can think you can't either way you'll be right.
Henry Ford
It is easy to build a philosophy. It doesn't have to run.
Charles F. Kettering
Keep on going and the chances are that you will stumble on something perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.
Charles F. Kettering
If we did all the things we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves.
Thomas Alva Edison
I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Thomas Alva Edison
There is time for everything.
Thomas A. Edison
Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Thomas A. Edison
Why should the devil have all the good tunes?
Rowland Hill
When one door closes another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can do.
Lin Yutang
Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
Edward de Bono
A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
Charles F. Kettering
Give me a lever long enough And a prop strong enough I can single-handed move the world.
Archimedes
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.
George Washington Carver